During my first few years of elementary school, my family lived in Los Angeles. Because it was almost always warm enough to eat outside, my school didn’t have a cafeteria. Instead, we just had an outdoor courtyard with plastic picnic tables and a small window through which hot lunches were dispensed.

I was mostly a brown-bag kid in those days, but occasionally, when something on the monthly menu particularly spoke to me, my parents would give me a dollar and let me buy lunch. I always asked to buy lunch on the days when they served sloppy joes.

I think part of the reason had to do with how it was served. The saucy meat came packaged in a little aluminum tray, covered tightly with foil. On top, they’d stack a waxed paper dish that held the bun and a plastic cup of applesauce or fruit cocktail. You’d go to your seat with a carton of milk, a napkin and a plastic spork to assemble your very own sandwich. I loved it.

You’ve exhausted the peanut butter and jelly routine and have rolled your final turkey and cheese wrap. Now what? When it comes to packing your kids’ lunchboxes, variety is key; after all, no child — or adult — looks forward to eating the same lunch day after day, so it’s important to keep their midday meal both interesting and easy to eat. Check out Food Network’s top-five sandwich selections below, and switch up your usual school lunch rotation by introducing these fresh, flavor-packed recipes that are as simple to prepare as traditional favorites and every bit as kid-friendly.

5. Chicken Salad Sandwiches — Put the leftovers from last night’s chicken dinner to work in this quick-fix salad sandwich, laced with a creamy mayonnaise-mustard dressing.

4. Mediterranean Tuna Salad — All it takes is two slices of bread to turn this chickpea- and tomato-studded tuna salad into a ready-to-go salad sandwich.

When it comes to a classic grilled cheese, gooey slices of American sandwiched between buttery white bread may be the timeless preparation, but there’s more to feature in this family favorite than cheese alone. In this week’s Most Popular Pin of the Week, Food Network Magazine dressed up the classic creation in its collection of 50 Grilled Cheeses, featuring recipes for a Crunchy Nacho version with corn chips and jalapenos, a Mediterranean interpretation piled high with baba ghanoush and zucchini, and a Brie and Marmalade variation made of orange spread and creamy Brie on cinnamon-raisin bread. Ideal for a next-level lunch or easy lunch-for-dinner dish, these deliciously simple takes on the everyday sandwich are no-fail picks.

Whether you pack your lunch every day of the week or are looking to form the habit in an effort to salvage your paycheck, it’s best to have on hand a selection of lunch recipes that aren’t just crave-worthy but also filling and easy to pack, to avoid getting stuck in a PB&J rut. So often the star of the brown-bag lunch is a sandwich built with salt-laden deli meats and cheeses on slices of soggy bread, but with these highest-rated recipes for dressed-up sandwiches and salads from some of your favorite Food Network chefs, you can pack a midday meal that’s anything but ordinary. Check out recipes from Ellie, the Sandwich King and the Neelys below, then tell FN Dish in the comments: What’s your favorite dish to pack for lunch?

A five-star recipe that can be made in minutes, Ellie’s Hummus and Grilled Vegetable Wrap (pictured above) combines good-for-you ingredients in an easy-to-eat sandwich that’s light but satisfying. The key to executing this dish quickly is having all of the ingredients ready and simply waiting for assembly. After quickly cooking the zucchini and slicing bell peppers and red onions, start building the wraps by spreading the bread with store-bought hummus and layering the vegetables inside. Add a sprinkle of toasted pine nuts to guarantee a welcome crunchy texture in each wholesome bite.

Game Day is just hours away, and whether you’ve been planning your tailgate-ready menu for days or have just started thinking about what you’ll serve, rest assured that Food Network has easy recipe ideas to see you through your big game bash. Perhaps more than anything else on Sunday, it will be important that you have enough food to feed the mass of hungry football fans gathering in your living room. But while you want to offer a super-large spread of eats and drinks, you surely don’t want to spend your evening in the kitchen cooking it while your friends are cheering about the latest touchdown. To make sure that you enjoy game day too, stick with fuss-free recipes for slow-cooked classics and easy-to-make sandwiches to feed the whole group without a lot of time or effort. Check out a few of Food Network’s favorite crowd-pleasing recipes below, then find a complete game-day menu with Alton’s meatballs, maple blondies and Bobby’s margaritas.

While most macaroni and cheese recipes require plenty of hands-on time for cooking and draining the pasta, whisking in handfuls of cheese and milk and then transfering everything from stove to oven, Trisha Yearwood’s Slow Cooker Macaroni and Cheese is the ultimate in do-ahead cooking. She starts with precooked macaroni (what you have left over from last night’s dinner is a-ok to use), then mixes it with milk, butter and more than a pound of cheddar cheese in the base of a slow cooker and lets the machine do the work for her. Prep this meal in the late afternoon, and by the time you’re ready for dinner during the first half, all you’ll have left to do is quickly stir the macaroni before serving.

Sliced bread is the measure against which we judge all the best things in life because without it we wouldn’t have one of the most ingenious food inventions of all time: the sandwich. Starting six months ago, we scoured America for the country’s most delicious sandwiches and we learned two things: One, you can put pretty much anything between two slices of bread, and two, almost everything tastes better that way. We considered sandwiches of all kinds — hot, cold, round, square, tall, pressed, wrapped, meaty, cheesy — and narrowed down our list of favorites to the single must-try sandwich in each state. Catch some of the best on Cooking Channel August 19 at 8pm, then get out there and try them!

Grilled cheese is my jam. When I was younger, my dad would make my sister and me a grilled cheese sandwich every day after our morning swim practice. It was basically the best treat in the world. Stuffed with Colby jack cheese and buttered to perfection, my dad would slice it in half on a diagonal, rather than a boring down-the-middle cut, and we would gobble it up with big smiles on our faces. But those were my picky eater days. Now I stuff my grilled cheese sandwiches with lots of fun ingredients.

And what better event to pair with an all-American jazzed-up classic, like the grilled cheese, than the Olympics? So I’ve decided to share my grilled cheese — Olympic edition. It’s loaded with two kinds of cheese, juicy tomatoes and sliced avocados, then slathered with a healthy dose of butter and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes and grilled to perfection. Try serving this tonight for the Olympic swimming matchups — invite your friends over and tell them to bring over their favorite ingredients for a grilled cheese sandwich soiree.

I’ve taken a classic recipe from Tyler Florence and made additions to it.

Yeah, I know, everybody’s throwing a Super Bowl party. But on this day, I avoid the celebratory one-upmanship and stick with an easy, stress-free concept that allows me to enjoy the actual football-watching part of the big game (imagine that!).

I’m all about a sandwich bar and beer. Albeit a little spiffed up because I toast the sandwiches and serve craft beers, but straightforward enough, right?

Now I realize that, depending on your comfort level in the kitchen, “easy” and “stress-free” are relative terms. But taking this notion of sandwiches and beer and kicking it up a notch really is simple — even for the novice cook or reluctant entertainer. Honest.

The ground rules are simple: Invite a bunch of friends, tell them to bring something (ice, drinks, a side or dessert), and you provide the main course (in this case, sandwiches). Gone is the pressure of heavy-duty cooking, replaced by a focus on enjoying your pals and having a good time.

You created six new sandwiches for Food Network specifically for the big game this Sunday. How did you come up with them?

JM: They are easy sandwiches I would want to eat while watching a game. Plus, they hold well so they are going to remain fresh and tasty, at least until halftime, when they’re all gone.

Which one can we expect on your menu?

JM: My good friend is actually hosting an engagement party the day of the big game, which is not only grounds for a man-card revocation, but also cuts into my prep time. That’s why I’m making the Rueben Meatball Sliders. They are easy to make ahead, as well as the Monster Muffaletta, which really involves no cooking.

After all the BBQ parties, salads and juicy burgers, try something a bit lighter for lunch today. Send the entire family off to work or school with this savory sandwich made with turkey, avocado and whole-grain bread. Mayo is swapped out for a lighter, healthier condiment with nonfat, plain Greek yogurt for a protein and fiber-packed meal.

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